I had originally decided to run as a companion to my current retrospective on the Death of Superman, the WildStorm series StormWatch, given my fondness for it’s third act. But honestly with the reputation of the writer of the series Warren Ellis being what it is, it took several weeks for me to finish it and I didn’t really feel that it should be venerated in that manner. I am a believer that you can separate art from artist to an extent, but 14 issues of coverage seemed to be far from that reasonable separation. So I decided to remove the finished post and try a different pathway.
One of the first things that I thought of was the mini-series. Now, I know that the mini-series first appeared in 1979 and several of the more acclaimed mini/limited series were from the 1980s (Wolverine, Camelot 3000, Squadron Supreme, Watchmen to say a few) but in terms of quantity, the 90s were where the mini-series came into it’s own. Between events, cross overs, specials, one shots and 4-6 part series, it seemed like everyone got a shot at their own series, giving a plethora of writers a chance to write their pet characters or show their stuff on a property that was safe. This led to a lot of new characters, new ideas and a lot of side stories. I’ve put a list together, hoping that it shows a bit of variety in what these series did and why they were enjoyable.
Maybe they don’t stand up, maybe they’ll be better than I remember and maybe there’s a lot of fun to be found in the places between. So the four I’ve picked each fall into their own catergory.
Prelude to somethjng. This is where a character is about to be involved in a bigger story than usual and the writer wants to make a big show of them before this. A DC example of this is Sword of Azrael, before Knightfall came out.
Would this work as an ongoing? This is a test to see if there’s enough fan interest to move it forward. Nightwing, Savage Dragon and Wolverine all had their start doing this and became proof of concept.
Past Story or Origin: From Man without Fear, to Man of Steel, to Secret Origins, Year Ones and any Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale series that had a colour in the title, this was a way of looking into the past to illicit interest in a current or upcoming title, or a way to tell a story that continuity doesn’t really let you do right now.
The Continuity Fixer/Retcon-ish: This is a series that fixes or explains older stuff that doesn’t make sense, or allows a bit of a continuity shuffle. Good examples of this are Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour: Crisis in Time and Infinite Crisis, bad examples of this are Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour: Crisis in Time and Infinite Crisis. By that I mean they are a mixed blessing that cause as much continuity problems as they fix and often have less favourable after effects that go beyond the quality of the stories. I say that because I love all three of the examples I laid out, but fixing after the fact was often needed.
There are other examples, the prestige series, the one off stand alone and others, but I’ve not picked one of them yet, since I feel they deserve their own thing, rather than be part of mini-series madness.
So with that in mind, I’m about to go and get the first series to look at out of my longboxes, a Prelude to Something mini that I liked so much I have bought it about 3 times without realising.
See you soon.
Next Time: If the 90’s were one character…..
My Marvel Life 